Sour in the Rye pours a hazy but brilliant burnt orange with a
dazzlingly white head that rolls down the side of the glass when swirled in
creamy bright swirls and also has intense orange highlights coming through the
glass. There is citric and lactic tartness mixed with spicy oak and rye in the
nose followed by loamy earth; it is really quite splendid. Flavors start with
young oak and fruit—pear and apple—followed quickly by lactic tartness that
transitions into a brighter citric bite towards the finish. There is also some
candy and biscuit buried underneath the other flavors in the front and middle,
and a decent tannic bite from the oak in the final third of the beer. The
vitamin C citric bite and the spicy rye with oak combine nicely in the finish;
both linger a bit, but leave the palate mostly clean with only a slight mineral
grit on the tongue. The body is medium and slightly chewy with bright, clean
carbonation that, combined with the tartness, draws out the other flavors. I
like this beer quite a bit more than the Tart of Darkness from last night,
mostly because it is brighter and more bracing; while it provides an equal
amount of blushing on the cheeks, the tartness is clean and sharp without the
lingering acetic burn. There is also more body to balance the tart components
of the beer, and more depth of flavor to carry the beer as a whole. I’ll be
looking for another bottle of this to see how it ages.

From the bottle: “Deliciously sour, bursting with spicy rye notes and
hints of oak from the barrels it was aged within.”

From the Bruery website: “We brewed this ale with around 40% rye as a base malt and let our sour yeast and bacteria eat away at it in oak barrels for over a year creating a sour ale with a complex character of rye spice, oak and a subtle funk.”